UFC Daily Fantasy Helper: UFC 283

The Ultimate Fighting Championship holds no short of a dozen mixed martial arts bouts nearly every weekend with no real offseason. As one of the most unique sweats available, UFC daily fantasy is live on FanDuel.

The strategy behind this fantasy sport is intriguing. Given that two fighters face off against each other, and some fights end in seconds, choosing which side to back is crucial, and there is a wide range of outcomes. However, getting the winning fighter isn't all that matters. They've also got to land enough strikes, takedowns, or submission attempts to score points!

numberFire is always the best spot to prepare you for any UFC card. If you would rather bet on the fights, our betting guide is excellent for finding value on Saturday's card. I also dove deeper into this weekend's slate on The Heat Check Daily Fantasy Podcast.

Let's break down UFC 283: Teixeira vs. Hill, taking place at the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Saturday.

MVP Considerations

There are four significant favorites on this weekend's card, and all carry elite finishing potential with odds of -105 or shorter to win by an early finish. They are Jailton Almeida ($23), Josiane Nunes ($22), Jessica Andrade ($22), and Gilbert Burns ($21). Looking anywhere else for an MVP seems like a waste of time.

Almeida is the largest favorite on the card at -1100, and the heavyweight grappler has mowed through three foes in the first round entering this one with Shamil Abdurakhimov. Abdurakhimov has had his moments in UFC (he's ranked 15th despite not winning since April 2019), but they haven't come grappling. His 47% takedown defense is ripe for another quick Almeida finish on the mat.

Looking elsewhere in tournaments is a play on the fact it could take Almeida a round or two to get it done. Nunes is likely the second-best bet. The 5'2" striker is much shorter than any other active women's featherweight, but she's come with quite the punch. Her +3.17 striking success rate (SSR) is the best in the division, and opponent Zarah Fairn has the worst rate on the card (-4.63).

The latter two come with more paths to failure but a similar upside. They're battling ranked foes.

Andrade has scored a first-round knockout in three of her past four fights. The one exception was a title-fight loss to champion Valentina Shevchenko. With six knockouts and three submissions in UFC, she brings danger to a women's flyweight division that typically lacks it. Her opponent, "Lucky" Lauren Murphy, is aptly nicknamed. She's been outstruck in 8 of her past 10 fights despite the 7-3 record.

As for Burns, he just went toe-to-toe with middleweight title challenger Khamzat Chimaev after battling Kamaru Usman for the belt itself. Neil Magny is a significant drop in competition, and Magny's poor takedown defense (57%) is a recipe for disaster against the 2011 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championships gold medalist. Burns averages 2.00 takedowns per 15 minutes in UFC.

Other High-Salaried Fighters

The two title fights are a bit too close for MVP, but all four challengers deserve consideration on FanDuel given the two extra rounds in both bouts.

Deiveson Figueiredo ($18) and Brandon Moreno have fought three times for the flyweight title already, so there's not much speculating on what it'll look like. The first three have been wild fights to a point where, of a possible six times, the fighters participating eclipsed 65 FanDuel points before win bonuses five times. With six knockdowns and six submission attempts since the start of 2020, Deiveson is always the more lethal guy from a DFS perspective.

As for the title fight, it's the opposite. One fighter will likely score a bunch of points after dominating the other, who scores poorly. It'll be a question of if Jamahal Hill can knock out Glover Teixeira ($17) before the world-class grappler finds an opening. As a grappling novice, Hill dislocated his elbow the last time he tried. The former titleholder Teixeira has 10 pro wins via submission.

To fit all of these guys at higher salaries, we'll have to be pickier the rest of the way in, but a couple of others stand out.

Ihor Poteira ($17) dropped his UFC debut, but 41-year-old Mauricio "Shogun" Rua will be a lighter test. Shogun has been outmanned as he's aged in this light heavyweight division. He hasn't scored a knockdown since December 2018, and he landed just 35% of his significant strikes the last time he fought someone younger than 39. The young buck is +125 to find a knockout at a modest salary.

The last guy worth looking at is Saimon Oliveira ($16) in the first fight on the card. Oliveira also dropped his debut, but averaging 2.00 submission attempts per 15, he's shown chops grappling. Opponent Daniel Marcos had a successful stint on the Contender Series (+2.40 SSR), but no professional wins or losses by submission raises massive red flags if the Peruvian can even grapple at this level. Marcos' 53.8% pro finishing rate isn't worth the risk -- even if he survives.

Value Fighters

Reliable value is tough to find on this card with so many lopsided fights, but we'll piece it together in the lower-mid-range. At $15, Terrance McKinney ($15) and Warlley Alves ($15) make boatloads of sense.

McKinney already has three UFC finishes to his name set to battle newcomer Ismael Bonfim, and his FanDuel-point-per-minute rate (5.53) is top five on this card.

With a 52% takedown accuracy and landing 1.1 submission attempts per 15 minutes, Alves' best UFC moments have come grappling, and Nicolas Dalby (65% takedown defense) isn't scary there -- nor is the fact Dalby hasn't scored a UFC knockdown in 369 career significant strikes.

I'm fully fading the Bonfim brothers with Mounir Lazzez ($13) set to battle the larger of the two, Gabriel. Lazzez, with two wins over UFC winners themselves, has been excellent with the promotion. He's got a +2.12 SSR and a 71% takedown defense to keep the fight where "The Sniper" can win it. I'd be crazy to pick against him with someone who has never faced a foe with a UFC appearance.

At the same salary, Paul Craig ($13) is "old reliable" in the bargain bin. All eight of his UFC wins have come via finish, and in seven of those fights, he was the betting underdog. He's built for this role in DFS, and the mistake-prone Johnny Walker (and his 58% takedown defense) would be far from the most shocking upset victim in Craig's odd career.

I'm taking chances with newcomers below these four. They're suspiciously shorter underdogs than ranked fighters like Murphy or Magny. Where there's smoke, there's typically a fire or two.

Brunno Ferreira ($12) showed well enough on the Contender Series (landing 10.11 significant strikes per minute on 61% accuracy) that he could finally be the one to make Gregory Rodrigues pay for a poor 50% striking defense. It's plausible at least.

Melky Costa ($11) is stepping in on short notice to fight Thiago Moises, and I'm always down to fade Moises' -1.54 SSR. He's generally overvalued, so maybe it comes crashing down to the newcomer with 13 of his 19 pro wins by finish.

At that same mark, Luan Lacerda ($11) is facing Cody Stamann, who has yet to beat a fighter averaging north of 0.5 submission attempts per 15 minutes. Lacerda, with 10 submissions in 12 pro wins, will easily clear that mark in his tenure with UFC. Stranger things have happened.